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Under its new generic top-level domain programme, ICANN has set up the Trademark Clearinghouse to help assuage the concerns of trademark owners. Petter Rindforth takes a look at what the Clearinghouse will offer.

Under its new generic top-level domain programme, ICANN has set up the Trademark Clearinghouse to help assuage the concerns of trademark owners. Petter Rindforth takes a look at what the Clearinghouse will offer.

The most recent ICANN public meetings were held in Prague in June and Toronto in October, 2012. Th e work on the implementation model for all new top-level domains (TLDs) proceeded, and once up and running it will include some signifi cant new rights protection mechanisms for trademark owners that are not available in the current space.

One of those is the Trademark Clearinghouse, described as a single database of authenticated registered word trademarks that will provide data to support trademark claims and sunrise services. The Clearinghouse will be operated by a third party under licence or agreement with ICANN and is intended to replace the need for trademark owners to register in multiple databases as the new generic TLDs (gTLDs) are launched.